


Gigai Games

by possumhours



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, POV Multiple, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn, aka i ignore the epilogue and pick things i like only out of the expanded universe pile, i'll probably update these as i go, this fic can basically be summed up with: get in the gigai grimmjow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:01:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26945608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possumhours/pseuds/possumhours
Summary: Grimmjow took the bait, “The hell is a gigai?”Gigai are meant to help a shinigami recover quietly in the living world, so why not arrancar? At least, this was probably the thought process Uruhara had when Grimmjow finally came out of a coma. Too bad that thought was almost immediately followed up with thinking of ways to make the situation Ichigo’s problem.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 41
Kudos: 201





	1. Revival

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I, a humble writer nostalgic for my favorite anime as a teenager, looked at bleach and went ‘yeah, I can make a romantic comedy out of that’. To the small yet solid fandom, I hope you enjoy because the content you’ve put out has brought me comfort in this trying year. This work is as much of a love letter to you as it is to my nostalgia. May it bring you warmth and a twist of a smile to your face.

Ichigo paused at the door to Uruhara’s shop as a thought occurred to him. His hand went slightly limp on the handle. The corners of his mouth turned down slightly, brow furrowing a little deeper than usual. His vision even spaced out a bit as his whole brain dedicated its attention to his realization.

Today was the second anniversary of the day that Yhwach was defeated.

It wasn’t like there was going be a celebration or anything. They hadn’t last year. Rebuilding was ongoing and grief had still felt too fresh. Ichigo felt like the same could probably hold true for this year.

But, last year, he’d had the excuse of school. Ichigo had thrown himself into it wholeheartedly. Not really for his future, but to have an ongoing distraction. It had the added benefit of finally getting a couple teachers off his back. The second he’d been handed his diploma, however, he realized he didn’t quite know what to do with it. Ichigo realized he didn’t know how to move forward. It’s not an uncommon problem for graduating students. It shouldn’t have been that big a deal. But, most students hadn’t fought wars in their spare time.

The second he stood still, the nightmares started. Some he could remember. Others were hazy. They were often drenched in blood and his blade was broken. His friends died in them. Or his family. Ichigo always woke up with a start drenched in cold sweat. It was hard or impossible to get back to sleep after. His mind and body got hazy on bad weeks.

Turns out that being a kid fighting several high stakes wars takes a toll on the psyche. He hadn’t realized it but he’d fought school like a battle. Ichigo had walked those halls with one eye over his shoulder, drilled out tasks to his study groups like a military leader, and studied himself into dreamless sleep. Everyone, including himself, thought he was just trying to make up for lost time.

Ichigo decided to take a gap year to try to get his head in order. To think about what he wanted to do. He worked jobs at Ikumi’s or helped around the clinic for money. Just to sorta feel like he was still saving up to live away from home. He was crushingly aware that he was going to turn nineteen in less than a month. Many of his friends had finished a year of college now. Or started moving their life forward in other ways. Orihime and Tatsuki had gotten engaged a few weeks ago. Which was a good thing. It was an exciting, joyful thing that he honestly couldn’t wait to celebrate with them.

It just made him feel a little more lost than usual.

Well, comparison wasn’t going to stop his nightmares. Sulking about it wasn’t particularly productive either. The important thing about his line of thought was that Yhwach was two years dead and good fucking riddance.

He slid open the shop door. Ururu paused from counting change out for a rare customer. She was in high school now. He’d heard that she’d begun to make friends there that were her own age and less spiritually aware. The whole experience had brought more of a natural smile to her face. Uruhara, when drunk, would go on and on about it like the proud father he secretly was. He’d also complain about how Jinta needed to stop picking fights when he was playing sports.

“Yo,” Ichigo greeted, “Is Uruhara around?”

Ururu shook her head, “No, he went with Yoruichi-san to do some shopping and pick up take-out. If you want, I could text him to pick up your usual while he’s at it?” Ah yes, the completely obvious art of milking Uruhara for his gratitude. He’d already texted Yuzu that this would most likely happen. She was happy as long as he was fed by someone.

Ichigo responded, “Sure, always better to go home on a full stomach.” He waited for the customer to exit out the front door, “Is the bunker door open?”

She hummed, “It should be. If not, then Tessai-san is in the kitchen.”

“Thanks, Ururu.”

The bunker door was open. With a practiced motion, Ichigo pulled out his shinigami badge and pressed it to his chest. He caught his body and arranged it on a futon in the guest room. Then, he began the long descent by ignoring the ladder completely and jumping into the abyss. Ichigo slowed his descent by lazily creating a foothold with his reiatsu here or there. He landed a bit rough anyway. Unbothered, Ichigo brushed dust off his shoulder guards.

Ichigo paused to give his usual frown to the small shack Uruhara had built down here. A practiced action to prepare himself mentally for the sight that always greeted him. The building was something sort of hastily put together. The fact that there was a floor inside at all was honestly a miracle. It had been built on the assumption that the occupant would wake up soon. Then, it’d get torn down and the training bunker would return to its original purpose. Instead, Ichigo had been carefully training on the other side of the bunker whenever the mood struck him since the structure had been erected.

War had prices. In relation to that, people tended to fall into two categories when they went to war. Convinced they might pay the price if they weren’t careful or completely assured of their own strength and chances. Ichigo talked a big game on the battlefield at times but he’d always considered himself the former. But, it gave him zero satisfaction to see people of the latter get cut down. If anything, their expressions of shock and horror stuck with him a bit longer.

Ichigo didn’t want to see someone die ever again.  
His swords were placed carefully by the shack doorway, within decent grabbing distance. If the occupant of the shack actually woke up, Ichigo considered it an easy bet that he’d be a bit sluggish after being in a coma for two years. Although, some part of him almost expected a surprise. Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez had never had a shortage of those.

Ichigo parted the curtain that served as the door, toeing off his sandals as he went. He kept his eyes closed as he crossed to his usual seat, perfectly aware of how many steps he needed to take. He dropped to crossed legs. His hands grabbed his ankles to unnecessarily rearrange himself comfortably before resuming to his first arrangement. Stalling for time.

No point, really. Ichigo opened his eyes and looked down. They’d laid Grimmjow out on a futon, quilt drawn up to his bare chest. They’d left his arms on top so that he wouldn’t freak out too much when he woke up. Pantera had been carefully placed in the space between his arm and his side. As much as arming Grimmjow seemed like a bad idea, it didn’t change the fact that an arrancar’s zanpakuto contained a portion of their soul. It was a worse idea overall to separate them.

Due to being a spiritual being, Grimmjow hadn’t really lost any mass due to being still for so long. But, there were other visible differences. The arrancar had always been pale but now there was sickly pallor to his skin. His jawbone mask almost blended into the tone. There was no color to his lips especially, always looking chapped. Further up his face, dark circles had taken up permanent residence under his eyes. They almost drowned out the wings of vibrant green estigma. Most noticeably, his hair had grown out in the past two years, spilling out in dull, blue waves across his pillow. It wasn’t anywhere near the length of his released form. But, his cocky slicked up style had been practically erased.

He hated looking at Grimmjow like this. Poison was such a coward’s weapon. It was a complete antithesis to how the arrancar fought. Ichigo had a gut feeling that Grimmjow would agree with that before following it up with a smug, _I won anyway, didn’t I?_ Yeah, but the price seemed a bit steep in Ichigo’s eyes. The only comfort being that losing that fight would’ve been way worse. It was thanks to Grimmjow that everyone at that fight who called Uruhara’s home was still alive.

Ichigo pondered the events of it all for the thousandth time. He crossed his arms across his chest. If this particular space in his mind had carpet, it would be well worn from all of his pacing. Following the cowardly death of one Askin, Nel had jumped in with some of Uruhara’s prepared antidotes. It had kept the poison from killing them, left them right at the edge of death. Then, Nel had quietly relocated all of them to the hideout with Riruka and Yukio.

After Yhwach’s death, Ichigo and his friends had regrouped at said hideout. Ichigo had felt his worry evaporate as Orihime’s healing shield was raised. Nobody here would die at least. Until he’d noticed with a bit of a start that Grimmjow had been actively left outside of the gold light.

A hand on his shoulder. Nel.

She’d given him a kind look tinged with sadness, “She can’t heal him.”

A thrum of panic, “Why?”

Nel had held up her bracelet that let her stay in her adult form, “Hime can heal a lot of stuff. But, we learned while over in Hueco Mundo that she has some limits when it comes to hollows.” She’d rapped her knuckles against her mask, “She can’t reject broken masks. And she can’t reject hollow holes.”

Like a broken record, Ichigo had repeated, “Why?”

Nel hummed, “We don’t really know. Might just be because hollows are weird. Point is that poison is in Grimmjow’s whole body. If she rejects it, the area around the hollow hole will just retain it anyway. Or something bad might happen to the hollow hole itself.” Seeing his expression, Nel had wrapped him up in a big hug, “Don’t make that sad face, Ichigo. Grimmjow is too stubborn to die from this. We’ll figure it out.”

Well, Nel had been right about the too stubborn to die part at least.

Ichigo could say a few begrudging At Leasts about Grimmjow’s situation. At least, his breathing no longer sounded like a death rattle. At least, his heartbeat had stabilized to a steady beat. At least, his fingers and toes were no longer turning black from the poison. At least, Grimmjow hadn’t lost any fingers or toes. At least, the poison was completely out of his system by now.

Ichigo glared anyway and gave Grimmjow his usual line, “Hey, asshole, you should hurry and wake up so we can have that fight you wanted.”

No response. Just the sound of quiet breathing.

Ichigo sighed a long breath out his nostrils. He’d only admit it to Grimmjow if he asked but he’d been looking forward to that fight too. Things had been a bit dull these past two years. A good thing, it was peacetime. Many of his friends he either didn’t want to fight again or they were too busy with various duties to squeeze in the time. That was the problem with only people who were in appointed positions being at his fighting level. Grimmjow, as far as he was aware, didn’t fall into either of those categories. He might try to actually kill him in their next brawl. But, Ichigo was so goddamn bored at this point that it seemed like an enticing risk.

That didn’t mean Ichigo did a lot of sitting still.

Ichigo worked up a healing kidou between his fingers, one that aimed to help restore reiatsu. His dad had been training him in the art for the past two years. Ichigo knew he’d never be squad four material. But, this whole thing with Grimmjow had taught him that it didn’t hurt to have multiple people around with first aid skills. It could be the difference between a funeral pyre or a cot.

Plus, it kinda felt nice to heal wounds. Yuzu had nicked her finger with a knife yesterday and he’d been able to heal the small cut completely. Her eyes had shone with utter wonder at the small act.Karin had marched up to him with a paper cut an hour later and demanded to see his skills. His dad had just crinkled his eyes in amusement over the rim of a mug of coffee. There was a bit of a fuzzy, warm feeling in his chest just thinking about it. It felt like protecting someone in a different way. Because it was on his mind, Ichigo recounted these events to Grimmjow’s still form with a twist of a fond smile. He picked up Grimmjow’s hand as he talked, letting the kidou sink into his bones. It felt more encouraging to talk to a comatose person than to sit there in the oppressive silence. But, Ichigo didn’t have much to talk about other than his life or interests. So, Grimmjow had unwittingly become Ichigo’s closest confidant. It wasn’t likely that he’d remember anything Ichigo said. Or care all that much if he did. There wasn’t much of a concern in Grimmjow using anything he said against him either. Ichigo had already promised him his wanted fight after all. He wouldn’t need to be goaded into it.

After awhile, Ichigo fell silent with a frown. He could tell when his kidou was having an effect. Lately, no matter how much energy he poured into Grimmjow, it seemed to do nothing. It was probably the reason why Tessai had ceased his efforts on top of Ichigo’s. He’d simply shook his head and declared it a waiting game now. It was extremely discouraging after nearly a year of effectiveness. Ichigo sorta suspected this development might be why Grimmjow’s hair had gotten so long instead. Just the useless energy transferring itself to _somewhere_.

Why? If his body was done absorbing reiatsu, then why wouldn’t he wake up? His brow scrunched up further as he thought. Ichigo studied the jawbone on Grimmjow’s face as his gears turned, eyes trailing lazily over each sharp point of teeth. It was as deadly looking as Grimmjow actually was. Ichigo distantly wondered what it had looked like before Grimmjow was an arrancar, just another hollow wandering the deserts of Hueco Mundo.

Hollow.

Ichigo could have slammed his entire face through the shack wall. The answer was _right there_. So far, all his efforts in kidou had been solely using his shinigami energy. It wasn’t hurting Grimmjow, arrancar had just as much shinigami as hollow. But, Grimmjow had always been a hollow first. Both in manner and nature. So, it stood to reason in Ichigo’s slow to catch on brain that Grimmjow should _probably_ get a bit of hollow reiatsu.

“You are so lucky I’m a bonafide freak of spiritual nature,” Ichigo told him, summoning up the single horn that qualified as his mask these days. He summoned up some hollow reiatsu in his other hand, “Not so lucky I just thought of this. No killing me if this doesn’t work though.”

Ichigo had, in the past two years, read an embarrassing amount of articles on comas. Read first hand accounts of survivors. Read about drug induced comas, closest he could find to poison. Read about how they worked. Just read anything. Then, he’d taken it all in with a grain of salt because who the fuck knew with arrancars. Regardless, this healing kidou was going straight into Grimmjow’s skull. For no other reason other than that’s clearly where the problem lived.

Gently, Ichigo lowered his hand onto the crown of Grimmjow’s head. Some part of him almost expected the arrancar to immediately wake up and try to bite him. Instead, the crackling black of hollow reiatsu began to slowly seep into his skull without incident. Encouragingly, this reiatsu felt like it was being absorbed. Ichigo twisted a blue strand of hair between his thumb and forefinger anxiously, watching eagerly for any signs of life.

Ten minutes passed like this.

“Ichigo!” Yoruichi’s voice echoed down, “We brought your takeout, you mooch! Let sleeping cats lie and come eat some potstickers!”

Well, potstickers _did_ sound pretty enticing. It might do him some good to refuel a bit before continuing. He was probably going to skip after dinner drinks in favor of pushing this new discovery to the limit.

“I’ll be back in an hour, going to eat,” he muttered to Grimmjow, taking his hand off his head.

Suddenly, the hand he’d still been holding gave a sharp twitch.

Ichigo looked down sharply, eyes wide. He hadn’t imagined that. That was the biggest sign of life he’d seen out of Grimmjow since he was poisoned. Ichigo gave the hand a squeeze back.

Nothing. And yet.

“Ichigo!”

“I’m coming!” Ichigo turned back to Grimmjow, “Alright, I’ll make it half an hour, dickhead.”

~~~

Grimmjow hurled himself over a rotten log, crashing through damp ferns, and sending warm blood scattering everywhere. His heart was pounding in his ears with a roar. Every instinct in his body was focused on pure evasion. On the landing, he skidded to the side so he could dart off in a completely new direction.

The jungle screamed with life around him, a sign of his inner world responding to his distress. Usually, it was quiet and dark here. Perfect conditions for a predator like Grimmjow to hunt. Now, it was too bright. Too loud. There were eyes _everywhere_. Some of them indifferent. Many of them belonging to something hostile. Some of them were supposed to be long dead.

At least, it wasn’t on fire anymore, threatening to consume him.

That nice thought didn’t help his current predicament so fuck that. Also fuck him for running into Tousen directly before running into Aizen. Of course, Tousen had casually cut off his arm again just like he always did. Pantera hadn’t taken kindly to that, leaving her sword form to rip the shinigami to pieces. That had given him a window to take off and lick his wounds.

Grimmjow had been more annoyed by it than anything. Then, he’d looked up when he sensed someone standing in a patch of dappled sunlight. Outside his inner world, Grimmjow would never admit to the utter fear those cold eyes instilled in him. Aizen, even here, didn’t do much more than stand in his line of sight and just look. But, somehow, that always felt _worse_ than Tousen literally taking his arm off.

It didn’t stop him from yelling “Prick!” in Aizen’s direction. But, he hadn’t stuck around to see the reaction.

Grimmjow slammed his bare feet against the trunk of a tree before leaping off into another direction. He almost lost his balance due to the missing arm. The trick to being chased was utterly confusing your hunter to throw them off the scent. He’d had particularly crafty prey do that to him when he was an adjuchas. Grimmjow couldn’t help the snarl that worked its way up his throat at that thought.

Reduced to _prey_ in his own mind space. Utterly pathetic.

A mad cackle sounded off somewhere to his right. Of _course_ , how fucking _perfect_. Grimmjow turned his head a few degrees to confirm the flash of a stupid, circular high collar flapping away. There was also a flash of blunt teeth beneath an eye patch. Grimmjow’s crescent scar on his shoulder burned.

Grimmjow skidded to almost a complete halt, feet digging into the soft tropical soil. This was one enemy he wouldn’t run from even in his own mind. He was still pissed off that he didn’t get to kill the piece of shit himself. Nnoitra’s echo would just have to fucking do. He blackened his remaining hand into claws. Then, he pivoted with a growl that showed all his fangs.

To empty jungle. Fuck.

Breathing hard, Grimmjow listened. The atmosphere had fallen deadly silent. Of course it would in the presence of a predator.

A voice to his right, “Hey, asshole, you should hurry and wake up so we can have that fight you wanted.” Grimmjow lunged on instinct before immediately realizing. Not Nnoitra, just Kurosaki back with his usual bullshit. There was the sound of a familiar weapon whistling through the air to his left, chains rattling in tune with gleeful laughter. Grimmjow turned his head in horror. Slow. Too _slow_. He watched the front of a crescent blade slide across his vision. The other half was behind him, aiming dead center for Nnoitra’s final parting gift.

The blade froze in time, inches from his skin.

Grimmjow looked down at it with slightly crossed eyes, lungs heaving in hot humid air. Beyond the blade, Nnoitra was hanging in the air like a macabre puppet. Immediately, Grimmjow squatted below the trajectory to crab walk backwards a distance.

There was the gentle pressure of a warm hand in his. Against his pride, every muscle in Grimmjow’s body immediately relaxed as Kurosaki’s presence washed over him. He justified it with the fact that nobody seemed to attack him when the shinigami was present.

“Dunno whether to curse you or thank you for this one,” Grimmjow muttered as he looked at Nnoitra, “Cut that one too close.” There was a tingle of Kurosaki’s weird shinigami healing energy. Grimmjow glanced down at his restored left arm with a blank look. He’d lost his jacket a long ways back. All the arm trimmings had destroyed one of the sleeves to the point that it just slipped off one day. He could recall that at least. He had no recollection about what happened to his boots. He still had his black jumpsuit. There were tears in it and the front zipper had busted off at some point, exposing his hollow hole to the stagnant jungle air. One out of his two sword belts had been lost to fire, when that had still been an issue. It had been the first thing he’d lost.

Grimmjow was uncomfortably aware that he was losing pieces of himself to his own world.

Kurosaki was rambling on about healing kidou that Grimmjow was half paying attention to. He turned his head to squint at the hazy outline of his...enemy? Even he could admit that word didn’t feel quite right when Kurosaki had been trying to wake his ass up for who knows how long. He just didn’t understand what other word there could be. Maybe if he woke up and stabbed Kurosaki then Grimmjow might be able to figure it out.

Pantera glided out of the jungle behind Kurosaki’s wobbly form. Grimmjow felt her pleased purr in his own chest as she licked a bit of blood off her muzzle. His arm was avenged once again. She took the form of a black jaguar with piercing blue eyes in Grimmjow’s inner world. She approached with silent steps to rub up against him. Grimmjow huffed a bit but bumped cheeks with her from his crouch. He trailed his free hand over her almost invisible spots as she passed. Grimmjow didn’t need to watch her to know that Pantera was setting herself up to tear Nnoitra’s throat out the second that time resumed.

Kurosaki had fallen silent. A bit weird for him, but it stretched on.

For the first time, Grimmjow looked around his inner world with a bit of a lost, tired expression. He dragged his hand through his sweat-soaked hair. How the fuck was he supposed to wake up when he was attacked when he was alone? And he could only recover when Kurosaki gave him a bit of respite?

“I don’t know what to fucking do,” Grimmjow hissed, utterly frustrated.

There just wasn’t any way forward. No matter how many attacks he dodged. No matter how many he dealt out. No matter how many times he lost his arm. No matter how many enemies Pantera shredded. None of it mattered. Everything remained the same. There was no fighting his way out of it. There was no thinking his way out of it. It was such absolute bullshit.

“You are so lucky I’m a bonafide freak of spiritual nature. Not so lucky I just thought of this. No killing me if this doesn’t work though,” Kurosaki spoke as though he’d had a sudden idea.

He forgot that Kurosaki couldn’t hear him, a fact he’d confirmed a long time ago. Grimmjow barked out with alarm, “What the fuck can you do, huh?” He opened his mouth to launch a tirade when there was the sudden touch of Kurosaki’s other hand on the crown of his head. Kurosaki’s outline came into an almost clear focus as pure hollow reiatsu ripped through Grimmjow’s body.

Oh. That. _That_ was exactly what he needed.

Grimmjow closed his eyes and practically basked in it. He felt like a starving man being handed a meal. The last time he’d been on the receiving end of this particular energy had been their last fight. It felt stronger now but also more controlled. It made his claws and teeth itch for another fight. Maybe it was because Pantera was so close but he almost felt a strong urge to purr his satisfaction.

Pantera burbled out an alerting noise. Grimmjow’s eyes snapped back open to flick in her direction. She was staring intently at Nnoitra’s frozen form. Pantera glanced at him then back to Nnoitra. He took the hint.

Nnoitra’s form wavered for a brief second then began to crumble to ash. First, his weapon dissolved then the arm that held it. Next, the body followed and all his incredibly stupid clothing with it. The mad smile and too wide eye were the last to go. Pantera’s tail lashed in annoyance as her prey began to ‘escape’. Grimmjow watched the ash catch a breeze and disperse into nothing. This had never happened before.

Grimmjow stood there shell-shocked for a few minutes. Kurosaki was still quiet but Grimmjow could feel his eyes boring into him. Light began to bleed orange through the rain forest trees as the sun began to set. This quickly gave way to a red twilight before finally descending into blissful darkness. Pantera looked back at him, predator eyes flashing in the low light. A slow smile spread across Grimmjow’s face as an excited, feral energy began to take root.

This world was his again.

“I’ll be back in an hour, going to eat,” Kurosaki’s voice suddenly said. The pressure on his head disappeared. A cold panic filled Grimmjow’s chest. What if everything suddenly went back to exactly the way it was before? Instinctively, Grimmjow tried to crush Kurosaki’s other hand to make him _stay_. Whenever he’d tried to interact with Kurosaki before nothing had happened. There would be no change in the amount of skin contact. His hand would go through his body. Where ever Grimmjow’s body was, it was clear it wasn’t intent on moving much no matter how much he raged.

However, this time, Grimmjow felt Kurosaki’s hand move slightly in response. It was a small movement, so small that even he wasn’t quite sure that he’d managed to move for a second. But, he felt Kurosaki freeze up and squeeze his hand back slowly in response. No hand returned to his forehead.

“I’m coming!” Kurosaki called to someone Grimmjow couldn’t hear, “Alright, I’ll make it half an hour, dickhead.” Then, his hand was gone and his form flickered out of existence before Grimmjow could launch a protest. A snarl ripped out of his chest at the desertion. Just when they were getting somewhere interesting.

Grimmjow was alone, again.

Pantera chirped a protest. Well, almost. Grimmjow looked to her to see her reactions to their surroundings. They both shared the same level of heightened senses but she tended to remain more present in the moment. Grimmjow used to be that way before he evolved to arrancar. Now, he tended to get distracted by his own thoughts more often than he cared for.

She rubbed her head hard against his legs, scent marking him. Grimmjow rolled his eyes affectionately, digging his fingers behind her ears to scratch. She rumbled her approval. Pantera paused to look up at him and gave him a slow, deliberate blink. _Safe_ , it said.

“Safe,” Grimmjow muttered back, “Think I can stop fucking around and wake up then?”

Pantera responded by winding herself around his legs a few times before padding off towards the darkened jungle. She threw a few playful looks over her shoulder. Ah, she wanted to play a game of chase first. Grimmjow felt a pang of nostalgia. This was all very in line with what his inner world was supposed to be like.

A grin crawled over his face, “Alright, suppose I owe you for eating my enemies so many times.”

That game ended as it always did. Pantera laying bodily on top of him grooming his head and face. Grimmjow let out a sigh against her fur. Pantera was his partner and a part of his soul. So, it technically never counted as a loss. At least, that’s what he told himself as a warm tongue spiked his hair. He scrunched his eyes closed as she moved to lick across his mask and eye, waiting out her affection.

It never came.

Confused, Grimmjow opened his eyes to find Pantera gone. The jungle was as well. A wood ceiling filled his vision. His body still felt heavy as though Pantera was still perched on it. Grimmjow twitched his fingers a bit. Oh wow, he felt like shit. His hierro wasn’t even on, that’s how shit he felt. He looked down to his left arm to double check that it was still attached and not ghost hand bullshit. Grimmjow came nose to hilt with Pantera nestled into his side. Well, he had both arms _and_ he was armed. That was a definite positive.

Grimmjow was awake.

He forced his stiff body to sit up. It left him slightly sweaty and panting with the effort. Hair fell in his face at some point, startling him with how long it was compared to his usual hair. He went cross-eyed staring at it for a bit. How goddamn long had he been out?

Grimmjow was on a futon in some sort of...shed? Where ever it was, it wasn’t familiar. Instinctively, he tried to raise his hierro in defense. It sputtered out almost instantly and pain flared up in his body. He sucked in a sharp breath in response. Starting to feel uneasy, Grimmjow’s eyes darted about his surroundings.

There was a familiar pile of folded black and white on the ground near him. He frowned at it. If his clothes were there then what was…

Pausing his search for an exit, Grimmjow lifted the sheet he was under. He stared down at his crotch. Some pervert had put underwear on him. Some tight-fitting black shit. This was off to him because he usually just free-balled it in his jumpsuit. After all, if he needed any sort of protection beyond hierro there was always his resurreccion. But, it did narrow down his options as to who had put him here. It wasn’t Soul Society. They wouldn’t give enough of a shit to preserve his chastity like this. Other hollows would have killed him and ate him by now, obviously. Quincies would have just killed him, period.

So, that really only left Kurosaki and his dipshit brigade. Or a faction Grimmjow knew nothing about. But, evidence strongly pointed towards the former.

Grimmjow strongly considered removing his new underwear. Unfortunately, he felt like he only had enough strength in his body to either remove the offending article or put his clothes on. Grimmjow marked the underwear’s death date in his calendar. Instead, he grabbed his jumpsuit out of the pile and struggled to his feet. He wobbled over to the wall and started doing the most undignified hop he’d ever accomplished in an attempt to get his legs in the damn thing. Success didn’t feel like it was on the horizon.

He proved himself wrong with a lucky break. Giddy, he stuck his arms through the holes, zipped it, and promptly fell on his ass. Grimmjow didn’t bother trying to stand up again. He just made an undignified army crawl towards his sword belts and Pantera to strap them to his waist. He had one arm in a jacket sleeve when two large spiritual pressures began to approach the shed. His senses were two weak to determine their identities.

Grimmjow dropped the other jacket sleeve in favor of Pantera’s hilt. He bared his fangs at the door in warning. He crouched into something that could imitate threatening, if his body would move the way he wanted. It didn’t matter who it was. No one could see him weak.

A little voice whispered in his ear that they already had. And they hadn’t killed him. He dropkicked it to the bottom of his subconscious.

Uruhara Kisuke ambled in first, gray eyes lit up with equal parts concern and curiosity. Right behind him was Kurosaki, whose expression went from hopeful to delighted the second he saw Grimmjow. It was so utterly baffling that Grimmjow dropped out of his readied snarl.

Kurosaki looked different. A bit older. His shinigami robes and swords looked the same but everything else was a bit off. He was a little broader, possibly from new muscle. There were dark smudges under his eyes that weren’t there before. Actually, Grimmjow knew from Kurosaki telling his limp corpse that he apparently didn’t sleep well. His hair had grown out a bit, like he kept forgetting to cut it. There was even some stubble to his jaw.

“Grimmjow,” Kurosaki approached him, hands in plain sight away from his swords, “Good to see you finally awake.” He still had a bit of a goofy grin on his face. Grimmjow narrowed his eyes but let him get close. He kept his hand on Pantera. Kurosaki ignored that to reach over Grimmjow’s shoulder. He stiffened. Kurosaki’s hand quickly returned to view, holding the edge of his jacket open. He gave Grimmjow a look out of the corner of his eye. A dumb, trusting Kurosaki look.

Grimmjow flexed his grip on Pantera. Release her to put his stupid arm in the jacket and show Kurosaki a particle of trust or be a contentious asshole. Before being poisoned, he’d have chosen the latter option every day of the week. Just for the fun of it. Just to add to their eventual rematch. As things were now, he was _tired_. Grimmjow knew he wasn’t going to be in fighting form anytime soon. And, for reasons he found unclear and suspicious, these people had kept him alive.

The jacket wouldn’t bite his arm off. Still, he only released Pantera with both shinigami in his line of sight. Grimmjow hovered his hand for a second before shoving his arm in the jacket sleeve. Kurosaki patted his shoulder in a manner that was a little too friendly. Then, in one swift motion, Kurosaki freed Grimmjow’s newly long hair from beneath his jacket with a too gentle tug. Grimmjow considered biting him.

“How are you feeling, Grimmjow-san?” Uruhara asked, no doubt seeing his thought process.

“Just peachy,” Grimmjow croaked out instantly. Fuck, was that his voice? He sounded like ground shit. So much for the ‘never show weakness’ plan of his entire fucking life. Both shinigami gave him a worried look. Grimmjow relented, “Fine. Like absolute garbage. Happy?” He curled the edge of his lip in the beginning of a defensive snarl.

Uruhara snapped open his fan, “I see. Then, could I perhaps interest you in one of my famous gigais?”

Kurosaki leveled the man a surprised look.

Grimmjow took the bait, “The hell is a gigai?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! I really wrote this in a frenzy in about four days. Might take a bit of a break.  
> Sometimes you don’t get to the what your story centers on until the end of near 6000 words and go ‘Huh. This is gonna turn out longer than I planned’. What can I say? I’m a stage setter. Well, that’s my problem, not yours.
> 
> Comments are appreciated because they are my fuel!


	2. Onus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get in the gigai Grimmjow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really debated the chapter name on this one but couldn’t find any other word with a similar definition that I liked. Anyway, get your giggles out now. Say the word a few times and really savor it.
> 
> Also, you’ll soon find I’m a big fan of the slight rewind when it comes to switching perspectives. I’m not sorry about this. Actually, I highly recommend it if you’re writing more than one perspective and get stuck easily.

Ichigo could hardly believe it. Grimmjow was awake. He still looked like absolute shit, of course, but he was conscious. The circles under his eyes were as dark as ever but the blue depths of his eyes were finally visible, absorbing information about the world around him. He kept shooting Ichigo glances, mostly suspicious but there was something else there. Curiosity? Three fights and one short team up hadn’t really made him an expert on the former espada’s expressions. They’d spent about seventy percent of the time they’d known each other trying to stab the other.

In the privacy of his thoughts, Ichigo could admit he’d always liked Grimmjow’s eyes. It wasn’t for the nice color alone but for the fact that they were so expressive. Every reaction seemed to start there before spreading to the rest of his face. Even if Ichigo didn’t always understand the expression, Grimmjow didn’t really hide his. Even when the arrancar tried to keep his face blank, the eyes tended to break any attempted poker face.

He didn’t like that Grimmjow’s hair now hung in his face and made his expressions a bit harder to catch. Ichigo hadn’t been able to see what was there when Grimmjow had decided to actually take his hand off Pantera and let Ichigo help him with his jacket. Instead, he was getting the full front of a look of growing irritation after getting a little too presumptuous by freeing Grimmjow’s hair from beneath the jacket. There was a familiar curling of a lip to show the points of canines that were much too predator for a human mouth. God, it made Ichigo nostalgic.

Too stubborn to die, indeed.

“How are you feeling, Grimmjow-san?” Uruhara asked.

Grimmjow turned his attention to the shopkeeper, “Just peachy.” His voice sounded like he’d gargled nails then immediately followed it with a chaser of bleach. It made concern pang in Ichigo’s chest and it must have shown through on his face. Grimmjow went on the defensive, “Fine. Like absolute garbage. Happy?” There was those predator teeth again. The eyes weren’t irritated this time, looked more wary.

Uruhara snapped open his fan. He had a conspiratorial glint in his eye that meant something was afoot. The man had too many ideas and too much time on his hands. “I see. Then, could I perhaps interest you in one of my famous gigais?” Ichigo blanched at him. And just enough boredom to amuse himself by putting dangerous arrancar into fake bodies to unleash upon the Living World, apparently.

Grimmjow’s wariness only went up, “The hell is a gigai?” There was a note of curiosity in his voice. Big mistake. Ichigo felt his first surge of pity that he’d ever felt for the arrancar. Clearly, Grimmjow had had enough interaction with Uruhara’s scheming at this point that he knew to be cautious. But, much like Ichigo at first, he’d yet to learn that peacetime Uruhara was twice as conniving. Especially since he was facing the fact that he’d be an empty nester in a few years when Ururu and Jinta became adults.

Ichigo just wished his coping didn’t involve so much inventing. Or trying to bribe him into testing stuff with cold, hard cash. Something he had taken Uruhara up on once or twice. He was a broke young adult with hopes and dreams. The side effects tended to be unpleasant, however, so he tried to limit his exposure. Going blind for a solid day after testing eye-drops that were supposed to allow someone to see a hollow’s heat signature had made him rightfully dubious.

Uruhara snapped his fan shut, “Why I’m so glad you asked, Grimmjow-san!”

“Drop the fucking honorific,” Grimmjow interrupted with an irritated tone.

The two stared at each other for a long moment. Ichigo felt like there was a telepathic conversation happening that he wasn’t in on. Between Uruhara and Grimmjow. It was weird and alarming.

Uruhara gave a businessman’s smile, “Very well. But then you have to call me Kisuke.”

“Done,” Grimmjow said with zero emotion, “What’s a gigai, Kisuke?”

“Why I’m so glad you asked, Grimmjow!” Uruhara tittered a second time as Ichigo reeled a bit. He was hit by the realization that, by doing that weird contract, Grimmjow actually might be more familiar with Uruhara than Ichigo. Grimmjow was currently rolling his eyes at Uruhara’s antics as he explained gigais. Listening intently but clearly moody. Yet, nowhere near homicidal. Weird. It also was making Ichigo hyperaware of the fact that Grimmjow had yet to say a single word to him. That was even weirder, honestly. He’d kinda expected at least one threat by now. Ichigo seriously questioned his own disappointment at that.

Grimmjow bared all his teeth as the explanation ended, “I am not going into a bullshit fake human body so you can get your sick kicks out of it.” Ichigo noted that Grimmjow had twice the normal amount of sharp canines framing his blunt front teeth. He silently hoped that the arrancar decided to bite Uruhara. Just to cut his scheming short.

Uruhara gave a sly look down the bridge of his nose, “Well, I can’t force one on you. That’s simply not ethical. And if you say you’re not weakened enough to need one, then clearly I simply cannot stop you from walking out this door right here, a _very_ short distance away.” Emphasizing his point, Uruhara noisily shuffled away from the door. The shopkeeper kept his expression carefully blank.

Grimmjow’s eyes flickered between the both of them and the door. Ichigo revealed his empty hands again to show that he certainly wasn’t going to stop the arrancar. Tragically, Ichigo was now a little curious to see if Uruhara was right. He hadn’t seen Grimmjow move an inch as of yet. But, he’d had his hand on his sword like he was ready to use it. Was he really…?

The second that Grimmjow stood up and took a valiant step towards the exit, he immediately crumpled. Startled, Ichigo caught him under the arms to keep his head from slamming into the wood floor. He winced a bit as the edge of a bone mask knocked into his thigh. That would bruise later. Ichigo stared down into blue eyes that had gone unfocused. Grimmjow had gotten dizzy. Just from standing up. Worry exploded in his chest that he tried to keep from reaching his face. Weakened or not, Grimmjow could still probably bite his throat out from his current position.

Sure enough, Grimmjow eyed the column of his neck like it was an opportunity the second his eyes came back into focus. But, they quickly moved up straight to his face and held eye contact. Grimmjow’s face scowled deeper but there was no added malice. He seemed to be thinking. Ichigo just tilted his head a little in blatant confusion. Grimmjow closed his eyes and let out a long exhale out of his nose, turning his face away from Ichigo. He felt strangely acknowledged and ignored simultaneously.

“I’ll take the damn gigai,” Grimmjow announced it like he was certain he was approaching a hangman’s noose.

Uruhara clapped his hands together, “Wonderful! I’ll go find you an option. Keep him company for a bit, Kurosaki-san!” With that, Uruhara flounced out the front door. Leaving Ichigo completely alone with someone, he was just now realizing, he’d known longer unconscious than conscious. Someone whose head was also sorta in his lap right now.

Abruptly, Grimmjow turned back, “Why do you keep staring at me?” His hands were clenched into fists like he was expecting a fight.

Ichigo blinked, “Already said I’m glad to see you awake.”

“So, you have to stare at me.” Grimmjow’s tone and expression said that he didn’t understand even a little bit.

“Forget it,” Ichigo turned his own head towards the wall, “Do you want me to help you sit up?” He was careful to avoid using the word ‘need’.

Grimmjow growled a noise in the back of his throat that didn’t quite sound like a rejection. Ichigo flicked his gaze towards the ceiling like it might hold the answers about Grimmjow’s weird pride. Finding nothing, Ichigo carefully lifted Grimmjow’s upper body to lean forward onto his own bent knees. Then, he dropped his hands, figuring he’d pushed his luck enough. Grimmjow neither thanked him nor looked at him, just hunched up his shoulders a bit. Ichigo half expected that usual insult around now.

“You seen my boots?” Grimmjow asked him instead.

Ichigo was sorely losing his own Grimmjow guessing game. He was starting to wonder if Askin’s poison had done any permanent damage. “Yeah, they’re by the door. Give me a second.” Ichigo went to fetch the boots without being asked. In his opinion, the boots were a bit tacky but they fit someone like Grimmjow. Ichigo certainly wouldn’t be able to pull them off.

Grimmjow’s face lit up slightly as Ichigo handed the silver-worked leather boots over. He eagerly shoved his feet into them despite the fact that he clearly wasn’t going to be walking anywhere anytime soon. Still, it was kinda cute that he liked his shoes of all thingsso much.

“That attached, huh?” Ichigo asked as he dropped back to the floor. He crossed his legs and lowered his cheek onto a fist.

Grimmjow leveled him a considering look. Then, with harsh precision, he yanked up the practically invisible zippers on the inner ankles. Grimmjow declared, “I hated the hakama.”

“Huh?”

“That Aizen made the espada wear,” Grimmjow stared at the toes of his boots, “but it wasn’t like there a whole ton of other fucking options.” He let out a bitter snort, “Most all my clothes were going to shit after our fight. Couldn’t really replace them. Spent over a year like that until Kisuke replaced everything.”

Ichigo hadn’t really considered any of that. Sometimes, he had a tendency to forget how harsh a place Hueco Mundo was. That everything there was scarce. Even the clothing on an arrancar’s back, handed out by one traitor shinigami with a god complex.

“Why keep the jacket?”

“Were you listening at all, dipshit? I said I hated the hakama.” Grimmjow sneered, giving Ichigo’s own lower half a critical glare. “Hated the desert air blowing up the stupid legs and onto my balls.” He paused to give the middle distance a thoughtful stare, “I guess that was partially on me for ceroing the shit out of the weird shinigami underwear. Fudoshi or something? Like hell I was wearing that.”

Ichigo’s eyebrows raised to his temples, “You were going commando under hakama?”

“Yeah.”

“What if you flashed someone?”

“They got distracted then I stabbed them.”

Uruhara chose the middle of that weird conversation to return. Yoruichi was carrying the gigai behind him. Ichigo was kind of glad for it. He was honestly going to be spending the next week grappling with the fact that Grimmjow had once thought that flashing his balls at an opponent was a viable battle tactic. Was this why Uruhara had given Grimmjow a one piece catsuit? Perhaps the man actually did have a limit on his tolerance for chaos. Either that or Grimmjow had personally flashed Uruhara, a thought he wasn’t willing to think further about.

Yoruichi had the mostly naked gigai slung over one shoulder. It was only wearing a pair of black boxer briefs. With a cheery whistle from Yoruichi, she and Uruhara both gave the gigai’s ass a slap and then unceremoniously dumped it on the floor in front of Grimmjow. Ichigo died a little on the inside at the sight. But not as much as their organs might die if Grimmjow got pissed enough. He risked a glance at the arrancar, who was seething at the gigai rather than the peanut gallery.

Ichigo’s gaze also fell on the gigai. He was expecting an exact approximation of Grimmjow, just unconscious and mostly naked. Familiar enough sight. Instead, there was something that resembled Grimmjow in height, skin tone, and general bulk alone. Muscle was a faint promise. There were no marks, scars, moles, or tattoos on any of the skin. It was completely devoid of hair right down to the eyebrows. The eyes were open and gray in color, doll-like lifelessness reflecting the room. The facial features looked pliable and barely there.

Grimmjow looked up from the puddle of skin and bone. He fixed Uruhara with a gaze that said ‘Explain now. Or Else.’.

Yoruichi answered instead with a shrug, “All gigai look like that at first. When you first enter it, it uses stored energy to copy all your physical details and instantly creates them. Then, that energy is gone and the gigai will always look like who first used it.”

Uruhara lightly fanned himself, “Yes, but I’ve never made an arrancar a gigai before. So, I had to tweak some things here and there.”

Ichigo raised a brow, “Here and there?”

“I think a human walking around with a hole in his gut may cause alarm, yes?” Uruhara explained, “The mask may be also be a bit off putting.”

Grimmjow frowned, “What’ll happen to them?”

“Convincing physical replacing features.”

“The fuck?”

“Just get in the gigai, Grimmjow,” Yoruichi chimed in impatiently.

Grimmjow showed a single fang, “If I open my eyes and I’m this bald looking fuck, then they are going to have to invent a new goddamn word for what happens next.”

Ichigo commented while crossing his arms, “I’d honestly feel inclined to let him invent that word.” Uruhara remained completely relaxed in posture. The gigai itself probably wasn’t rigged as a prank then. Then again, he was probably too interested to learn how an arrancar took to a gigai.

Grimmjow dismissively clicked his tongue once. Then, he did a neat forward roll directly into the gigai. There was a whirl of blue light. Ichigo watched in amazement through a shielding hand as the gigai began to change. Muscle filled out the form. The gray eyes changed to blue with a swirl that resembled wet ink. Green estigma swept the corners as the eye shape itself changed to something sharper. Every facial feature quickly followed with incredible accuracy, including the predator teeth. The eyebrows grew in blue and slammed down into a challenging expression. The mask didn’t appear. Instead, a jagged scar decorated the right cheek. It was as if the mask itself had bitten it there. Blue hair flowed in one sharp wave, still overgrown. Familiar scars wrinkled and marred the chest. Finally, a black gothic six appeared on the back, crooked at an angle that usually complimented the missing hollow hole below it.

The blue light faded. The body shuddered on the ground and drew in a breath.

~~~

Grimmjow opened the gigai’s eyes to three assholes eagerly leaning over him. Kisuke had his scientist face on. Yoruichi was simply straight up eyeing him, leading him to a solid suspect for underwear based shenanigans. Kurosaki was looking him right in the face, concerned interest extremely easy to read.

“Feeling okay?” Kurosaki asked.

Grimmjow rolled over onto his back. Movement did feel easier. Limbs lighter. He flexed a hand to get a feel for the muscle on his bone. It felt weak compared to his normal body. But, more in general strength than outright ability to actually move.

Yoruichi interrupted his thoughts with a delighted snicker.

Grimmjow’s head shot up at that, “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just,” The corners of her mouth turned devious, “Kisuke replaced your hollow hole with a _treasure trail_.” Kisuke’s eyes were flashing amusement at her over his fan.

Grimmjow dropped his eyes to his lower stomach. Sure enough, there was a line of blue hair leading down from his new bellybutton to underneath his underwear. Grimmjow made a move for the edge of the cloth to see if it really went all the way to his dick like the name implied.

A hand grabbed his wrist. “If you flash me with your balls, I’m going to stab you,” Kurosaki told him, a slight touch of color to his cheeks.

“Prude,” Yoruichi hissed. Sensing that any fun she might have got out of Grimmjow was out of reach, Yoruichi left the shed while saying something about a thing called ‘takeout’ getting cold.

Grimmjow filed that away as a possible tactic to get a fight out of Kurosaki once he was out of the gigai. He shook the hand free and brought it up to his face. It was strange to not have the weight of the mask fragment on his cheek. Instead, he could feel a patch of rough scar under his fingertips. He ran his thumb over it to get a general idea of the size and shape.

Bored with that, Grimmjow lifted his arms above his head and stretched so hard all his muscles vibrated with the tension. Then, he relaxed to see if it felt like anything in the gigai had snapped. Nothing felt out of place. Satisfied, he sat up. He completely ignored how he almost knocked heads with Kurosaki.

He slid a hand down his chest scar with an irritated huff. Grimmjow looked to Kisuke, “Some fuckin’ clothes would be nice.”

The man instantly pulled a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt out of who knows where. The gigai wasn’t fast enough to follow the movement, much to Grimmjow’s annoyance. He held up a hand to anticipate Kisuke throwing them to him.

Instead, Kisuke held the garments captive, “Stand up and come get them yourself, please. Let’s make sure all is in functioning order.”

Grimmjow let out a growl of annoyance that didn’t have any true heat to it. Kurosaki got a weird look on his face again as Grimmjow showed his teeth. He ignored it in favor of standing up and successfully walking over to Kisuke.

Kisuke hooted, “Wonderful!” He handed over Grimmjow’s prizes instantly. Grimmjow immediately began putting them on. Without his hierro, the air felt a bit too cold for his liking.

Kurosaki piped up, “Hey, Uruhara, if you’re trying to get him to blend in then why does he still have a bear trap for teeth?” Grimmjow clenched down his jaw as if to keep them in place. He half expected Kisuke to start smacking his hand against his head as if he’d made a silly mistake.

Kisuke hummed, “Well, Kurosaki-san, it’s a bit like leaving a declawed cat their back claws. They have to have something to defend themselves with.” Grimmjow leveled an icy glare at him for the cat joke but resumed pulling on his shirt. “His senses are probably still above average as well. Hearing, smell, sight, and whatever else mysterious senses a hollow may have. The statistical chance that he’ll destroy the gigai goes up to a near certainty without those allowances.” Grimmjow was smelling the collar of his new shirt as he said that. It had a weird flowery scent that he wasn’t used to. He bit at it a little to see if the scent would intensify. The pair had paused to watch him, silently judging him for doing something totally warranted upon getting a new item. Smell was the best method to learn if something was safe? How did shinigami survive their own dumbassery? Grimmjow displayed his middle finger by pretending to pull it out of his sleeve.

Kisuke gave Kurosaki a smile that even Grimmjow knew meant trouble. The hair on the back of his neck prickled as he sensed that this was going to concern him. Kisuke put on his friendly deal-maker voice, “Kurosaki-san, may I ask you for a favor?” Grimmjow fully pulled the sweatpants on in one swift motion to prepare himself for whatever journey this conversation was going on. He pushed his hair out of his face and dropped into a crouch. Might as well get comfortable.

Kurosaki frowned, “I hate it when you say that sentence.”

Kisuke put a hand to his chest, “You wound me.”

“Just get on with it.”

Kisuke went straight for the kill, “Please let Grimmjow stay with you for a few weeks.”

“What? WHY?” The other two people shouted simultaneously. Kurosaki turned to regard Grimmjow with a look that said he was suspicious of an attempted ass kicking. Grimmjow figured the murderous look he was giving Kisuke must be potent as poison. He wanted to claw him but it didn’t seem they were available to him in this body. Realistically, the attempt would only embarrass him against a shinigami of Kisuke’s level while he was more or less incapacitated.

Kisuke got an actual pout on his face, “Kurosaki-san, do you know when the last time I was able to get a family trip with the kids, Tessai, and Yoruichi?” Grimmjow knew a guilt tactic when he saw one. Fuck, that was Kurosaki’s biggest dumb weakness. Grimmjow beganto watch his life start a slow tumble down a very steep sand dune. Kisuke groaned, “Before you went off to Soul Society to rescue Kuchiki-san!”

There was the guilty look. Grimmjow mentally cussed as metaphorical sand began to get in his metaphorical asscrack. Maybe he could quickly beat Kisuke to death with just his fists. Kurosaki caught his eyes over the shopkeeper’s shoulder, giving a slight shake of the head. Grimmjow ground his teeth to swallow down his emerging bloodlust.

Kisuke continued, “I’d wanted to go sooner but with a comatose person in our basement that simply wasn’t possible. Too many variables if he woke up and I wasn’t around! And also it’s just polite to return a life debt of that size, of course.” Grimmjow narrowed his eyes but even he simmered down a bit at that. “It’s summer vacation for Ururu and Jinta right now! I want to take the opportunity to close up the shop and take everyone camping in the mountains. Honestly, I wouldn’t _mind_ taking Grimmjow with but the question is how much close contact with my strange little family with no possible escape can he take, _really_?” They both looked at him as Grimmjow physically leaned away on the heels of his feet. Kisuke nodded understandingly, “Exactly.”

“Why me specifically though?” Kurosaki asked. Grimmjow’s fists clenched into the fabric of his sweatpants as he sensed he was about to slam into the desert floor.

“Several reasons!” Kisuke said brightly, “You’re capable of keeping him out of any trouble even if he gets out of the gigai somehow. Not recommended, by the way, Grimmjow, you need to wait until you’ve fully recovered.” Grimmjow scoffed and turned to study the wall with faked interest. “Second, Isshin and Karin-chan are away from the house on that doctors conference so the house is quieter. And Yuzu-chan has a way of worming her way into anyone’s heart. It also helps that her cooking is delicious. A much better environment for recovery, overall.” Grimmjow slanted an eye to focus on his peripheral vision. This body could eat actual food? “Of course, above all, you are the one person in existence he probably likes and respects enough to tolerate being around for long periods of time.”

Grimmjow fully turned his back on both of them, something his instincts didn’t particularly appreciate. He wanted to deny that last piece all the way up to the Soul King’s diced up corpse. But, if he closed his eyes, he could still see the clear picture of the fucked up hell his own inner world had become. His skin prickled with imagined pains and the burn of his lungs from his constant mad dash for survival. Only ever broken up by Kurosaki. Only ever woken up from it _because_ of Kurosaki. He just didn’t understand why because…

“Okay, but he does also want to murder me,” Kurosaki said flatly. Yeah, that. Grimmjow’s brow tightened in confusion. Did he? Still want to kill him? The urge for a rematch was still there but it was different somehow. Grimmjow felt like he was being fully swallowed by sand trying to figure it out.

Kisuke let out a light laugh, “On a battlefield with swords in your hands, fully healthy. High compliment from him, I’d say. Also makes him highly unlikely to murder you in your sleep while stuck in a gigai.”

Grimmjow muttered loudly to the wall, “Not wrong about that, I guess.” He kept his gaze firmly fixed there. There was a long period of considering silence. The skin between Grimmjow’s shoulder blades itched with the sensation of being stared at. He hunched down a bit more into his crouch, uncomfortable and full of a growing need to lash out about it. There was the sound of a conceding sigh from Kurosaki’s direction.

“Alright.”

Grimmjow’s heart did a weird jump against his rib cage. He slapped his hand on his chest. Something wrong with the gigai?

“Thank you, Kurosaki-san!” Kisuke shouted as the sound of air hissing reached Grimmjow’s ears. He cast a confused glance over his shoulder to see Kisuke smothering the breath out of Kurosaki with a hug. Kisuke quickly let go and turned to Grimmjow. He showed his teeth in case the man suddenly decided to attempt to give him the same treatment. Kisuke informed him, “I’ll go ahead and pack you a bag of essentials, Grimmjow. I’ll make sure to throw in a way to contact me if there’s any issues with the gigai.”

Grimmjow was so stunned by the idea of just being given items that he did something very unlike him. He said, “Thanks.”

Kisuke blinked before breaking into a genuine smile, “Why, you’re very welcome!” Great, the shopkeeper thought they were best fucking friends now. Unbelievable. Kisuke flickered out of the room on an uncharacteristic shunpo. Leaving Grimmjow on his own with Kurosaki. Again.

He really didn’t know what to fucking say about any of this shit. He definitely didn’t want to be trapped on a vacation with anything that someone as loud and strange as Kisuke considered a family. But, on the other hand, Grimmjow didn’t want to confront anything in the box labeled in his mind ‘Kurosaki healed me???’. That box needed to be buried in the desert but he couldn’t _do_ that if Kurosaki kept digging that shit up just by breathing near him. More than anything, Grimmjow wanted to go home to slaughter other hollows until his mind and sword arm were numb. Frustratingly, that wasn’t going to be an option for some time.

Kurosaki scratched his cheek, “Well, we might as well also go upstairs. No need for him to come all the way back down if we’re leaving for my place.” Grimmjow curled a lip at him in disgust. “Come on, don’t get pissed already. I’ll let you eat some of my Chinese food upstairs.” At that, Grimmjow hesitated to unleash the stream of vulgarity that maybe would’ve pissed Kurosaki off into dumping him on someone else. His gigai’s stomach rumbled with a traitorous groan.

Grimmjow rose to a standing position and shoved his hands in his pockets. He didn’t say a word but Kurosaki seemed to get the message. The shinigami headed for the door of the shed and Grimmjow, reluctantly, followed close behind.

The sight outside of the shed made him pause. They were in some sort of rocky terrain that Grimmjow didn’t recognize. He was briefly almost fooled into thinking they were outside before feeling how still the air was from lack of wind. His second clue was the extremely tall ladder leading up to a hatch in the painted ceiling.

“This is the training bunker,” Kurosaki told him, “We were keeping you down here because if you woke up and started wrecking shit then it wouldn’t be a huge issue.” Well, at least they’d respected his threat level enough to do that.

“Don’t remember askin’,” Grimmjow muttered as he eyed the ladder. He approached the bottom of it, angling his head at a sharp ninety degree angle upwards. Without sonido, he’d be climbing up the whole ridiculous length of it. Kurosaki started some sentence about helping him up. Grimmjow immediately began hauling his useless corpse of a gigai up the rungs rather than spend a single second being treated like an invalid. There was an alarmed protesting noise followed by Kurosaki climbing just below him. The asshole could easily wait for him at the top with a shunpo. Why was he choosing to climb up after him?

Grimmjow focused on the feel of one hand over the other. The metal rungs dug into his bare feet with a borderline painful amount of pressure. His muscles began to burn at the halfway point but he refused to slow down. Drops of sweat began to make his overgrown hair stick to his forehead. His idiot human lungs seemed to need more air than his normal body. What a fucking inconvenience.

When his vision began to swim a bit, Grimmjow didn’t understand that was an immediate problem. He thought that it was a human body’s dumb side effect from a small amount of exercise. It was only when his sight went black and his fingers slackened that he realized something was wrong. He didn’t pass out for more than a second. But, by the time the lights were back on, his stomach was in his throat and the ground was fast approaching.

Someone shouted his name, maybe. An iron grip was suddenly around his wrist, causing his whole body to jerk painfully from its own gaining momentum. He dangled there as his heart hammered wildly in his throat, eyes wide and lungs heaving. Grimmjow looked up to see Kurosaki’s hand gripping him. The shinigami looked as wild-eyed as himself. He’d twisted himself fully upside down with his feet hooked in the ladder rungs to catch Grimmjow in time. The legs of his stupid hakama were sliding up and exposing his skinny knees to the world.

His brown eyes searched Grimmjow’s face, “Are you okay?” He sounded just as breathless as Grimmjow felt after trying to race his way up a several story tall ladder.

Grimmjow felt his frustration begin bubbling dangerously. The answer was obviously no. Even the lowest hollow would be able to see how weak he’d become. What an easy meal he would be. The fact that he was like this in front of Kurosaki, of all people, was becoming increasingly embarrassing. The soft bastard had every reason to kill him and, honestly, should have years ago.

Rather than responding, Grimmjow turned his head away with a loud grind of his teeth.

He reached out with his feet and free hand to resume his grip on the ladder. Kurosaki’s hand tightened for a brief second until he seemed to understand that Grimmjow was catching his breath. Then, he released his left wrist as easily as he’d grabbed it. Grimmjow pulled it to his chest without a word, feeling a weird echo of loss. Probably leftover feeling from when Kurosaki would leave him to the mercy of his inner world.

There was a shuffling of limbs as Kurosaki swung himself on the other side of the ladder to face Grimmjow directly. One foot was perched between Grimmjow’s own on the rung. The body heat from his leg was distracting. He wasn’t used to having people in his orbit unless it was in battle. Kurosaki was chewing on his lower lip with a mildly constipated expression on his face. For some reason, Grimmjow noticed for the first time that Kurosaki had a lot of freckles.

“How long was I out?” he asked, mostly to break the weird silence. That and he was beginning to suspect that he wouldn’t like the answer.

Kurosaki hesitated with a grimace, “Two years.”

Grimmjow’s lungs squeezed painfully before he remembered how to breathe. “Two fuckin’ years?” He echoed faintly. He was a hollow, it wasn’t as if he’d had any huge grand plans beyond eventually beating Kurosaki into an early grave. Losing time in that sense didn’t matter to him at all. But, he wasn’t just a hollow. Grimmjow was an arrancar. And there was something else that they experienced. Something that Aizen used to eliminate them for if they began to exhibit symptoms. Grimmjow had always been watched carefully for signs, like they knew he might be preconditioned somehow. The espada hadn’t had a name to whatever they were frequently rotated out for. No one understood what it could possibly be.

Two short years ago, Nelliel had started giving him a similar look after watching him interact with Kisuke’s group. It wasn’t malicious coming from her, just curious and considering. It had been the look of someone who understood what she was seeing. He’d meant to confront her about it after they went home to Hueco Mundo. How much worse could this unnamed thing have gotten after two years in a coma? Grimmjow had less answers than ever.

“How’s Hueco Mundo?” He asked with a traitorous note of worry.

Kurosaki brightened up at that question, “Doing really well when I last talked to Nel! Harribel is back on the throne as queen and they’ve chased out or killed most of the straggling sternritter army. They’ve been focused on rebuilding Los Noches for the last six months or so? Oh, and Nel told me to tell you when you woke up, ‘I’m sick of doing your job of beating up weak challengers to Harribel. Hurry up and come back since you actually have fun with that. Also border patrol is boring for the same reason’.”

Grimmjow felt a faint twist of a smile emerge as he let out a derisive snort. Kurosaki tilted his head in fascination, leaning in slightly between the rungs of the ladder. Grimmjow leaned back in response. “What?” He asked hotly as the smile slid off his face.

“Last time we battled you were yelling about being king of Hueco Mundo is all,” Kurosaki mused.

Grimmjow rolled his eyes. This was long old news to him. “Being ruler of Hueco Mundo involves way too much fuckin’ politics and not enough blood spilling for me. Harribel set me up as one of her lieutenants to keep me off her back, keep every shithead hollow in line, and be the meanest weapon in her arsenal.” Grimmjow felt his old feral grin creep up his face as several nice blood-soaked memories flashed through his mind. Good times. “As far as bosses go, she’s a goddamn peach compared to Aizen.”

“Well, you’re not wrong on politics. She spends a lot of time doing back and forth with Soul Society these days, since her strongest soldiers assisted in the war,” Kurosaki rested his chin on a rung, brown eyes drilling into him.

Grimmjow wrinkled his nose, “I don’t even want to fuckin’ know until I get home. Can smell from here that whole thing is a pain in the ass.” Setting his jaw, Grimmjow glanced up to check the distance remaining.

Kurosaki put his hand on his arm, “Grimmjow, let me help you up. Please?” Weird tingles of heat spread up his arm. Grimmjow frowned critically, chalking it up a lack of hierro. Still, didn’t change the fact that Kurosaki seemed to think he could just touch him and not get bit. In retaliation, Grimmjow snapped his teeth at the air above the hand. When it was predictably yanked away, he resumed his climb up the rungs. “Grimmjow!”

He ignored the shinigami below him for a solid, blissful three seconds. It would’ve been longer in an ideal world. Kurosaki’s form then flickered into existence directly next to him. An arm slipped around his waist and jerked their hips side to side. Grimmjow let out a noise somewhere between a spitting cat and outright sputtering. “I’m going to rip out your intestines and feed them to you like shitty spaghetti if you don’t fuckin’ let go of me, Kurosaki.” He instinctively rested his blunt-nailed hand on Kurosaki’s abdomen as if to follow through. Then, he remembered how he was essentially declawed.

Kurosaki smacked his hand away, “Listen, I don’t want-” His words were cut off as Grimmjow decided to take the hit as a challenge to a fight. Using all his wet sponge gigai strength, Grimmjow headbutted Kurosaki’s forehead with his own with a snarl that had discordant jaguar tones that he hadn’t used since he was adjuchas. He was a bit shocked he was still capable of it, honestly. “Ow!” Kurosaki said in a tone that was more surprised than in pain. Meanwhile, Grimmjow’s head stung hard without his hierro and it only made him more combative.

The following slap fight was as childish as it was precariously perched. He attempted to strangle Kurosaki but his fingers were easily peeled off due to their current difference in strength. Grimmjow bit Kurosaki more than once, including clamping down on his ear and refusing to let go. Not until Kurosaki reached over and twisted his nipple through his shirt. Eventually, Kurosaki settled a grip like steel around Grimmjow’s lower back, locking him in place against the side of shinigami’s waist. His long legs splayed off the other side of him. Grimmjow was forced to lock his arms around Kurosaki’s head in order to keep his balance. One was curled across the forehead while the other was locked over Kurosaki’s mouth.

Grimmjow made the mistake of looking down. He slammed the side of his jaw into the crown of Kurosaki’s head. His heart raced in his chest at the visual reminder that Kurosaki could easily drop him like wet meat on cement. Grimmjow’s antics weren’t exactly a good counterpoint to that argument.

Instead, there was the feel of a mouth laughing against his bicep. The shinigami’s whole body was practically shaking with it. “What?” Grimmjow hissed. There was a loud snort as the shithead continued yucking it up. “ _What?_ ”

Kurosaki tried to maneuver his mouth above Grimmjow’s arm. He was so disturbed by the feel of lips on his skin that Grimmjow removed it to dig his fingers under Kurosaki’s shoulder guard instead. Kurosaki caught his breath, “Nothing. It’s just the longer you were taking to threaten me the more I was worried that poison messed with your personality or something.” He sounded downright giddy rather than upset.

“Only you would be thrilled by a murder attempt,” Grimmjow told him flatly, feeling orange hair tickle his face as he spoke.

“Only from you, I think.”

Grimmjow felt a strange heat flood his face and his heart did that weird flip in his chest again. He scoffed around those reactions, “Peacetime has made you a real soft bastard, ya know that?”

Grimmjow felt Kurosaki’s eyebrows move as he rolled his eyes, “Maybe you should try to beat it out of me sometime if it bothers you so much.” He resumed climbing the ladder, easily supporting Grimmjow’s heavier weight. Show off.

“Oh, as soon as I’m out of this fuckin meat suit I intend to,” Grimmjow snapped at him.

A strange warm feeling did fill his chest at the thought that, maybe, Kurosaki had been being honest about looking forward to their fight. He decided to not resume their ladder fight by licking Kurosaki’s ear and let the shinigami carry him.

Somehow, Grimmjow’s ego didn’t feel that bruised about it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all thought I was done with jokes about Grimmjow’s hatred of underwear? Not a chance. 
> 
> Uruhara is such a fun character to write. I love that scheming shady little bastard.
> 
> I wrote this at a much easier pace than the last one. So, judging from that I’d say expect an update every two weeks? No matter what I do, I can’t seem to break the habit of dumping over 5,000 words at once. Not problem for any of you, really. It’s just I’ve been following a practice of writing at least 400 hundred words a night and not pressuring myself at all beyond that. Its been working very well and I often sit and write more than that. Great method, highly recommend.


	3. Anomaly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I think I’ve spent enough time in exposition and can march firmly into rising action. I’ve just been having so much fun writing this that it turned out that way? 
> 
> Anyway, thank you for all the nice comments. I want you all to know I’m drunk texting you all a thousand heart emojis.

Ichigo was delighted to discover that Grimmjow loved potstickers. He was less enthused by how food aggressive and territorial the arrancar was about his meals. They’d squared him away to eat in the guest room so everyone else wouldn’t be in his space. The only reason he seemed to be tolerating Ichigo’s presence was because he was the one giving him food. Still, it was challenging to pretend to be wary of his snapping teeth when Grimmjow had sauce on the corner of his mouth.

Ururu had generously donated a pink hair tie and a handful of bobby pins to the cause of keeping Grimmjow’s hair out of his food. The former espada had shown a surprising amount of permissiveness to Ichigo pulling his hair back into a high ponytail for him. He’d even held his bangs back helpfully while Ichigo pinned them into place. A few strands were left loose at the front, an echo of his old style. It was a bit humbling to be trusted enough to be in his space like that. Even if it was prefaced with several threats of bodily harm if he stepped out of line.

The overall effect, from the sweatpants to the hair to the lingering shadows under his eyes, almost made Grimmjow look like a stressed out college student during exam week. The same look had graced Ishida or Orihime on several occasions. Only the scar from Grimmjow’s mask served to shatter that impression. That and the flash of fangs as he ripped his way through anything Ichigo handed him.

Ichigo was back in his body to enjoy his half of the takeout. Grimmjow had been surprised to learn that he was an alive person for all of three seconds. Ichigo might as well have told him that his favorite color was blue for all the reaction it got. Which was about two curious sniffs in the direction of his head.

Grimmjow paused mid-bite to flash him an arctic glare. Ah, he’d been staring again.

“Sorry, really not used to seeing you without…” Ichigo vaguely gestured to all of Grimmjow. His mask? His jacket? A gleeful look of pure menace? All of the above.

Grimmjow dropped his eyes back to his food, “Well, I didn’t take you for the type to shove your skinny ass in tight pants yet here we are, Kurosaki.” The arrancar shifted his own ass on the floor in apparent secondhand discomfort, “I don’t know how you willingly subject yourself to that, you fuckin masochist.”

“I am not taking fashion criticism from a guy who weaponized ball flashing in hakama,” Ichigo told him flatly, shoving a piece of chicken in his mouth. He paused as Grimmjow flipped him off, “You…didn’t flash Uruhara, did you?”

Uruhara, of course, chose that moment to slide open the door of the guest room. Grimmjow reacted by hovering the whole of his torso over his meal. His eyes roved over the shopkeeper with barely contained hostility. Ichigo was beginning to understand a little of what Rukia had meant by hollows giving up their hearts for pure instinct.

Uruhara took one calm look at Grimmjow and reacted by sitting himself in the doorway, enough that he wasn’t totally blocking the exit. It put him at about eye level. Grimmjow slowly relaxed back into his original eating position. Even took the time to tongue the sauce off the corner of his mouth. Huh. It honestly shouldn’t have shocked Ichigo too much that a man whose original research was to study something like Grimmjow might have absorbed a lot about hollow behavior somewhere in there.

A large duffel bag was tossed heavily at the threshold of the door. It was stretched tight from its load. “There you are, Grimmjow,” Uruhara said with one hand on his hat, “Everything you may want or need to have a comfortable recovery.” The man chuckled, “I feel a bit like a father sending his son off for his first sleepover.”

Grimmjow crinkled his brow over the brim of a bowl as he used chopsticks to shovel rice into his maw. There were several more seconds of scraping and chewing before he lowered the bowl to the table with a loud clack. He belched loudly, “The fuck’re you on about, Kisuke?”

“Gross,” Ichigo informed him. Grimmjow threw a chopstick at his head, missing purposefully by not even looking to aim. Ichigo retaliated by showcasing all his fine chopstick motor-skills by picking up one very small, slippery water chestnut out of his meal to crunch down on loudly. For someone who probably hunted all his meals with teeth and claws, Grimmjow was expectantly bad with chopsticks. And it definitely irritated him that Ichigo could do something simple that he couldn’t. It was hilarious.

Uruhara sighed wistfully, “Well, it was my invention that led to that whole mess with Aizen that led to the creation of arrancar. Can’t blame a kooky scientist for feeling some sort of responsibility.”

Grimmjow just gave the man a look like he’d grown a second head.

“You’re more of a weird uncle than a caring father type,” Ichigo told him dryly. Uruhara simply laughed at that rather than respond. The food was mostly gone. Better to get on their way to Ichigo’s home before Uruhara truly tried to adopt Grimmjow as his feral third child. It was probably a joke but who could say with Uruhara.

Sunset was just beginning anyway. Ichigo preferred to be home before Yuzu returned from her late night study sessions with friends. Otherwise, she’d worry about him. Never mind that his list of active threats was pretty short. Well, then again, he was dumb enough to let someone on that threat list crash at his home so maybe Yuzu was reasonable to fret.

Uruhara trailed after them to the entryway. Grimmjow was wearing the straps of his new duffel bag like a backpack and throwing suspicious glances over his shoulders at the shopkeeper. Like the man might actually have adoption papers hidden in his sleeve. The sleepover comment was beginning to feel a little too apt.

Ichigo sat down and began lacing up his shoes. This caused Grimmjow to pause and consider his gigai’s bare feet with contempt. Probably missing his tacky boots.

A pair of socks materialized from Uruhara’s sleeve, “Put those on and I’ll give you some shoes.”

“I hate socks.”

“You’ll hate blisters on your gigai’s feet even more. No hierro, remember?”

Grimmjow clicked his tongue once and snatched the socks out of Uruhara’s hand. They were black with tiny white skulls all over them. Only Uruhara would send a deadly hollow off with adorably patterned socks. Luckily, Grimmjow didn’t seem to think they were a problem thanks to his apparent total lack of fashion sense. He simply flexed his toes in the fabric a few times with the same baseline look of displeasure.

It was one of the weirdest sights Ichigo had witnessed so far. His former (?) enemy standing in Uruhara’s shop frowning at his patterned socks like they’d personally offended him. Ichigo was having a hard time connecting this version of Grimmjow with the guy who’d sent him plowing into concrete more than once.

Maybe it was the hair. Ichigo debated offering up a haircut when they got to the house.

Uruhara produced a pair of lace-up black combat boots and handed them over to Grimmjow’s grabby hands. He settled on the ground to shove a foot in one. For some reason, he kept his leg ramrod straight and stretched towards the ceiling with an impressive amount of flexibility. Ichigo’s eyes were drawn up the line of his leg where something caught his eye.

“What is with you and heeled boots?” He asked in a baffled tone, “You’re over six feet tall.” Sure enough, the boots had a heel and some platform to them, adding maybe an inch to Grimmjow’s height. That he really didn’t need.

“So? My resurrección is even taller,” Grimmjow said with a smirk.

Uruhara leaned down with one hand shielding Grimmjow from his words. But, he proceeded to speak at a completely normal volume. “He developed an affection for them after being unsettled by Sado-san being able to look him in the eye while he was in resurrección.”

Ichigo glanced at the boots again as Grimmjow erupted into a violent outburst. One whose end goal seemed to be the destruction of Uruhara’s hat. Uruhara was laughing like a madman and easily dodging. Even with that added elevation, there was no way in hell that Grimmjow was going to be at Chad’s height. Still, the mental image of Grimmjow in all his combative cat monster glory being startled at gentle Chad being the same height as him was extremely funny. Maybe because it was in that form that Grimmjow tried his level best to murder Ichigo. Also, why was he trying to be taller in his shorter human form if he got freaked out in the other? It was ridiculous. _Grimmjow_ was ridiculous.

Ichigo really couldn’t help bursting out laughing at the whole idea of it.

Of course, Grimmjow immediately changed the target of his murderous rage to Ichigo. He turned and tackled Ichigo to the floor with a fluid grace that betrayed what he actually was. However, the sight of Grimmjow sitting on his chest with only one boot on made Ichigo laugh even harder. Grimmjow’s look of fury morphed to one of complete bewilderment before settling on considering. The one that spoke of ideas forming. Never good with Grimmjow.

Before Ichigo could catch his breath, Grimmjow raised his socked foot in the air and pressed it directly over Ichigo’s nose. Ichigo stopped cackling immediately and gagged. He knew that Yoruichi had had the high honor of cleaning Grimmjow’s unconscious body about once a week. However, he didn’t know the details of that schedule or how long it had been. Either way, there was a distinct funk of sickness that had clearly transferred to the gigai.

Grimmjow grinned devilishly as he ground his foot like Ichigo’s face was a doormat, “That’s right. Breathe it in, asshole.” He said it with the confidence of someone that knew exactly what brand of body odor he currently had.

Tessai opened a door behind Uruhara, “Oh. They appear to be getting along.” Uruhara simply snorted conspiratorially behind his fan.

Grimmjow’s head twisted around, no doubt a retort forming on his tongue. Ichigo took the opportunity to dig up his old judo skills. He grabbed the larger man by the left bicep then slammed his palm into his right clavicle. Ichigo’s right knee simultaneously dug up into Grimmjow’s midsection. It was a move that was more effective when dropping from a standing position to drag your opponent down with you. But, he did have the element of surprise. Using more of a rolling motion than actual force, Ichigo flipped Grimmjow to his back.

Freed from smell hell, Ichigo snapped up the abandoned boot from the floor. He shoved it onto the offending foot of a shocked Grimmjow. For good measure, he began tying the laces tight himself. He wouldn’t put it past Grimmjow to kick it off just to shove his gross foot in his face again.

“Ah, Grimmjow, if you’re done playing with Kurosaki-san,” Uruhara piped up, “I do have a few more things for you.” He was holding out a clenched fist as if he had something.

Grimmjow made no effort to sit up. Instead, he stretched his head up to squint at Uruhara from an upside down angle. A hand that had been reaching over to slap at Ichigo redirected itself to hang loosely in the air with its palm up. Ichigo took advantage by using that time to lace up the other boot. Blue eyes flicked over to him. The other leg raised up into the air as if considering kicking him. Ichigo trapped it under his arm then proceeded to continue his boot crusade.

Uruhara dropped something round and silver into Grimmjow’s palm. The arrancar rolled it between two fingers and brought it down towards his face to get a closer look at it.

“That ring should hide the rest of your reiatsu if you’re in a bind,” Uruhara explained, “It’ll have the side effect of suppressing your hollow senses but I figured it would be easier for you if it was something controllable.”

Ichigo interjected, “Didn’t you get banished over a reiatsu repressing gigai?”

“Well, there was a bit more to it than that but this is a reiatsu repressing accessory! Totally different,” Uruhara claimed.

“Right,” Ichigo said sarcastically as Grimmjow carelessly slipped the ring into his pocket.

“Please use it if you sense any unfamiliar shinigami around. I’d prefer to keep Soul Society out of our hair,” Uruhara elaborated, “Oh! And here’s the final thing you’ll be needing.” Tessai held up a black motorcycle helmet that had a blue, familiar jawbone decal on the right side. The shopkeeper cheerfully framed it with his hands, causing Ichigo’s emerging disbelief to crack.

“Just how long have you been planning this, hat and clogs?” Ichigo demanded. An extra helmet or two laying around? Sure, made sense. One that was specifically intended for Grimmjow? Meant that Ichigo had walked right into one of Uruhara’s schemes once again. There was more to this than him wanting a family vacation. It didn’t even matter that this was probably the shopkeeper’s polite way of letting him know in a wink wink nudge nudge sort of way.

“I have a plan for many scenarios!” Uruhara deflected as Grimmjow cautiously took the helmet from Tessai.

“What is it?” Grimmjow looked genuinely puzzled, blinking down at his own reflection in the helmet’s visor. His fingertips were tracing the jawbone design as if trying to decipher how it got there.

“It’s a helmet for protecting your head,” Ichigo supplied.

“The hell? Are humans so fragile they need something like this to go outside?” Alarm and horror passed across Grimmjow’s face. His hand moved to his bare jaw, pressing into the scarred skin. Like he was testing the strength of it or contemplating shredding the fake flesh. One finger pressed down his bottom lip, exposing one sharp fang.

Ichigo was starting to notice that maybe he had a thing for Grimmjow’s teeth. He was known for being an absolute moron at times so this seemed to fit that track record. A voice in the back of his head that sounded very similar to Rukia was definitely lecturing him about his taste. Either way, he was going to stuff that revelation into a box to be examined in, perhaps, never.

“No, we’re not that fragile,” Ichigo assured him. He got up and retrieved his own motorcycle helmet off the bench in the entryway. It was also Uruhara’s handiwork, a birthday gift from last year. Black with his hollow horn decal in orange on the left side. He scowled at it slightly as he realized that Grimmjow and him kinda matched.

“Then why do I need it?”

Ichigo hummed as he slid open the front door, “Probably just be easier to show you.” And also get them away from Uruhara. For now, anyway. He didn’t wait long enough for Grimmjow to start getting contentious for the sake of it. Ichigo strode out the door like he didn’t give a shit if he left the arrancar behind to be tormented by Uruhara for all ofeternity.

There was the sound of shuffling and cursing as Grimmjow grabbed his dropped bag off the ground. Shortly followed by the thud of boots on concrete not far behind Ichigo. Sometimes, it was the small victories.

It was late sunset outside now. The reds of it were beginning to dim into a deep, lonesome purple. It cast Ichigo’s shadow long and black. Another fell into stride behind him, slightly warped by the forward lean it walked in and the large bag. A warm summer breeze blew through his hair, nearly relaxing him.

“Bye bye! Have fun you two!” Uruhara called out the front door, waving like a parent sending his child off on their first day of school.

They both pivoted to yell “Fuck off!” with an ease that almost looked rehearsed.

Grimmjow got right into his space and hissed into his ear, “Get me the fuck out of here.”

Ichigo suppressed a shiver at the feeling of hot breath on the side of his face. He knew Grimmjow was aiming for intimidating. Ichigo wasn’t going to be weird about it. “Gladly,” he managed to say in a flat enough tone. He spun on one heel to take a few paces. Ichigo lifted his arm to point at an object parked on the street. “That is my motorcycle,” he said with a hint of pride.

Originally, he’d wanted to get a moped to make delivering things for his part-time job easier. His budget hadn’t been high enough for anything else. But, then the neighbor across the street had put out an ad for a deep red 1997 Susuki Intruder that had called to him. Ichigo must have spent a fair amount of time mournfully gazing at it out the window. Enough so that his father eventually offered to chip in half. Normally, his pride might have rejected that on principle. But, he’d caved like rice paper at the thought of having something that was so fully his own. A piece of independence he could sit on and ground himself in.

The only rules attached to that money were he wasn’t allowed to drive when he was too sleep deprived. And, of course, everyone who rode including Ichigo had to wear a helmet. And he couldn’t take his sisters out on it until they were legal adults and Isshin could no longer stop them. It was originally never but Karin had been so offended by the concept that she’d bullied their father down a bit to that concession. By ignoring him for three days straight. Isshin could only handle so much cold shoulder in one sitting, being the embodiment of such an attention demanding goofball that he was.

Grimmjow circled the bike with a careful, fluid step. There was a spark of fascination in his eyes that he was trying to mask with his usual bored, pissed expression. He touched the seat with a curious hand before looking up at Ichigo, “So, humans ride around on these things and wear helmets to avoid braining themselves if they do stupid shit?”

Ichigo shrugged as he swung himself into the driver’s seat, “Pretty much.” He sometimes forgot how sharp Grimmjow was. Much smarter than his appearance let on.

Grimmjow didn’t respond. He had an odd distance in his stare with a fist clenched into his shirt over his abdomen. Surely, it hadn’t been long enough since he ate to get indigestion? Ichigo leaned back a bit to get a closer look at his expression. Instantly, Grimmjow snapped back into focus. The arrancar leered at him once before shoving his new helmet onto his skull.

The Intruder’s seat was shaped so that the rear seat was a bit higher up than the driver’s. It had a small backrest, mostly for aesthetic. Fairly obvious for anyone who’s ridden or seen motorcycles in any normal capacity. However, when Grimmjow swung himself into the seat, he arranged himself to lean against that backrest with his arms crossed. As far away from Ichigo and general traffic safety as possible. Ichigo found himself rendered speechless as it became clear that he was going to have to explain that the passenger had to hang onto the driver.

A foot kicked the back of his knee, “What now?” It sounded pretty muffled by the helmet.There was a small pause before Grimmjow repeated himself in a louder tone.

It was probably best to just go ahead and swing a bat into the proverbial hornet’s nest. Ichigo twisted his torso towards Grimmjow. “You can’t sit leaned back like that,” Ichigo explained in a voice that was only slightly strained, “Motorcycles go fast enough you’ll go flying off the back.” Here comes the swing. Perfectly arched. “You’re going to have to hang onto me.”

Grimmjow fell deadly silent, an enigma with the helmet on.

Ichigo started a nervous ramble, “Look, I don’t control the laws of velocity, okay? I-”

“Where?”

“Huh?”

“Where do I hang on, stupid?” Grimmjow snarled.

Ichigo knew he wasn’t the best at ‘self preservation’. Or containing his snark. The two might be related. He snarled back, “Around my chest, dick for brains!”

“Fine!” Grimmjow reached over and slapped his shoulder with enough force to send him facing forward again. Before he could react to that, two muscled arms slipped underneath his own. They immediately contracted into a death vice for about two seconds. He wheezed once before Grimmjow’s grip eased into something almost comfortable. Just tight enough to still feel like it could go back to attempted murder. Was he a hostage now? Orihime might find that funny in a morbid sort of way.

It was weird to have a passenger that was a bit bigger than himself. He was used to giving his various friends a ride, minus Chad who had his own bike. Everyone else was smaller than him or around his size. The last person he’dgiven a ride to was Rukia, just to indulge her undying curiosity about the living world. She’d kicked him in the shin when he’d joked the Intruder’s booster seat was for her.

Ichigo subtly sucked in a breath as he put on his own helmet. A quick mirror check showed Grimmjow glowering over his shoulder like a reaper. He gave Grimmjow’s forearm a quick pat as an experiment. Fingers flexed in his shirt followed by a growl that he felt rumble through the chest pressed against his back. But, the pressure around his chest remained the same so Ichigo counted it as a win for tolerance. Tragically, Uruhara really was on to something once again.

~~~~

The motorcycle was terrifying. But it was also very fucking exciting. Kurosaki rode like he didn’t fear death, which was exactly how a shinigami should do it, in his opinion. It wasn’t as fast as a sonido across bare desert. In fact, there was a lot of loud accelerating past slower vehicles. Lots of almost being warm before being chilled again by the buffeting of harsh wind. But, that was quickly becoming part of the exhilaration of it, seeing the irritated looks of other drivers as Kurosaki zipped past. Grimmjow could almost sympathize. He also considered flipping them off for fun. But, that would mean unclasping the vice he had around Kurosaki’s chest.

The road opened up as they crossed a bridge. Grimmjow unintentionally knocked his helmet against Kurosaki’s as he turned his head to look at the sunset over the river. The bastard reached down and pinched his knee. He wasn’t an expert but Grimmjow was fairly certain that keeping both hands on the handlebars was a better idea. Whatever, he’d retaliate later when the dumb idiot wasn’t expecting it.

The sunset really did take priority. It was probably in its last dying stages, well past the prime. The sun itself was a rabidly disappearing bright red sliver. Reflections were flashing off the river below. The darkness of night would set in shortly. But, that didn’t change the fact that it was the first sunset he could remember seeing. It was always night in Hueco Mundo. And his human memories had been destroyed by the evolution process a long time ago. Still, a lousy echo of nostalgia pinged in his chest even if he couldn’t remember.

It made his abdomenache a bit, reminding him of what he was missing, a pattern he was going to have to get used to while being in the living world. Hueco Mundo was empty, void of reminders. It was a nasty place to survive but there wasn’t anything to reflect any aspects of himself back in his face. Nothing got stuck in his brain and nagged of familiarity. Except maybe the personality traits of other hollows. And that was easily solved by walking off into the desert in the opposite direction until the feeling went away. Or stabbing them, whichever he was in the mood for.

Hollows belonged in Hueco Mundo, living souls in the living world, and one dumb substitute shinigami should probably stop testing those barriers. What was it he said? ‘You’re lucky I’m a spiritual freak of nature’? Sure, and absolutely fucking terrible at being a shinigami. Proper one would’ve slipped a blade between his ribs and been done with it. Off to reincarnation or Soul Society, where ever defeated losers ended up. Or maybe hell, there was a fair chance of that with his sparkling personality.

Grimmjow had been so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed that Kurosaki had slowed the bike down and parked it. He snapped out of it as Kurosaki pulled his helmet off, giving him a curious look over his shoulder. One ginger eyebrow raised, “You falling asleep back there, Grimmjow?”

At some point, Grimmjow had apparently given up on sitting upright and leaned his head against Kurosaki’s shoulder. He hadn’t even noticed. His gigai’s heart rate went haywire again. Real annoying, might need to check with Kisuke about it. Masking it, he calmly sat up and yanked off his own helmet, sending a bobby pin clicking onto the pavement. More fucking hair fell in his face as he stated, “Nah, just thinking about slipping back into a coma.”

Kurosaki rolled his eyes, “Ha ha, hilarious.” There was a bit more tension in his brow as he turned his head to scan the pavement, looking for Grimmjow’s lost bobby bin, maybe. Grimmjow could see where it was perfectly with his night vision but he didn’t want it back badly enough to go to the effort of picking it up. If Kurosaki wanted to squint around with his dumb human eyes to find it, that was his problem. Instead, Grimmjow favored swinging himself off the bike to get a closer look at the place someone like Ichigo Kurosaki lived.

_Kurosaki Clinic._

It didn’t look like…much really. Building didn’t stand out much from the ones around it beyond the blue sign announcing its purpose. Grimmjow was expecting something a bit grander. Some sort of big dwelling to suit the insane amounts of reiatsu that Kurosaki gave off. Instead, he was looking at a box that either of them could easily cero out of existence. Somehow, it unsettled him that Kurosaki could just live in something so fragile with little to no second thoughts. It was even more deeply troubling that he was just letting Grimmjow see it. Did the moron have a death wish?

Grimmjow cracked a few of his knuckles, an old nervous habit he hadn’t engaged in since Aizen was unseated. This whole thing was so extremely out of his element. He wanted to punch something or sleep uninterrupted for two days. Whichever came up first.

Fingers shifted in his hair, catching him off guard. Grimmjow’s hand shot up and grabbed the wrist with a bone-grinding amount of force. Kurosaki hissed in a pained breath, recovered metal pin in his other hand, poised to put it back in place. The intentions clearly weren’t hostile, but Grimmjow’s instincts kept ringing alarm bells loudly in his ears. It didn’t help that he’d come at him from the left side, where he’d been almost assassinated by Nnoitra.

“Don’t fucking sneak up on me,” Grimmjow bristled under the searching expression he was being subjected to. Then, with great effort against his own self preservation, he stiffly released his grip on Kurosaki’s wrist.

“Sorry,” the shinigami sounded almost sheepish. He stepped directly into Grimmjow’s line of sight before telegraphing his intentions to reach for his hand. Grimmjow watched the whole process with a grim sense of foreboding but let Kurosaki take hold of his tense fingers. Kurosaki’s hands were pretty warm, a little sweaty. He turned over Grimmjow’s hand and pushed the bobby pin into the center of his palm, curling his fingers closed over it. Still holding his closed fist like an idiot, Kurosaki met his eyes uncertainly, “You’d probably prefer a haircut anyway, yeah?”

“Yes,” Grimmjow responded immediately. There was a flash of surprise to Kurosaki’s face. Grimmjow didn’t understand why. If Kurosaki could lend him a pair of scissors then he wouldn’t have to deal with the dumb little metal bastards in the first place.

“Great, you should shower first,” Kurosaki wrinkled his nose, “You smell like ass.”

Grimmjow shot back, “You a connoisseur of that, Kurosaki? Fuckin’ gross.”

“Connoisseur is a pretty big word for you, Grimmjow.”

“Like you’re one to tell me that.”

Their bickering continued all the way to the front door. There was just as much hostility to it as a physical fight but Grimmjow could tell Kurosaki was enjoying it. He wouldn’t have pegged the shinigami as the type to keep up with a verbal spar based on all the yelling about protecting people and other horseshit during their last match up all those years ago. It was fun.

But, it was more entertaining to introduce Kurosaki to his rancid armpit when the shinigami bent over to take off his shoes in the entryway. That, of course, led to a round of roughhousing that knocked over the umbrella stand with a clatter. Grimmjow cackled wildly the whole time while Kurosaki cussed him out. Being able to mess with Kurosaki like this might make whatever pains the living world inflicted on him completely worth it.

Kurosaki got him in a headlock that he continued to snort out his amusement from. The shinigami informed him, “Didn’t picture you liking _playfighting_ this much whenever you woke up.” And he was right, much to Grimmjow’s sudden horror. What he was doing wasn’t much different from how he used to bond with his fraccion. Because that had ended super fucking great for everyone involved.

“These are just murder warm-ups,” Grimmjow deflected, nipping Kurosaki’s arm lightly with his fangs to indicate he was done. The shinigami immediately released him and inspected it for broken skin. Maybe Grimmjow should’ve, just to prove he wasn’t going soft.

Grimmjow chose to actively ignore both that instinct and the shinigami on the floor for actively acquainting himself with the floor plan. He couldn’t smell or hear anyone else in the building currently, which only emboldened him to begin opening doors and counting exit points. Too many windows for his liking but he mentally began sorting them as ‘could squeeze through’ or ‘not likely’. Kurosaki simply stood in the middle of the center room, only his head moving to monitor Grimmjow’s exploring.

The house was just as average as the outside, if not overly cluttered. At least, he sure thought so in comparison to the bare desert and the utilitarian Las Noches.None of the rooms really caught his interest except for one when he started his circuit upstairs. The fifteen on the door was an immediate clue. Grimmjow’s suspicions were confirmed quickly when he opened it to be blasted by Kurosaki’s scent, old and new.

Grimmjow paused, holding the door knob. Arrancar, absolutely including himself, were known to be fairly territorial about the space they claimed. There had been an abundance of pissing matches in Las Noches over it when all the Espada were alive. But, he didn’t really see Kurosaki as smart enough to give a shit about basic survival skills. Or ‘the etiquette of beasts’ as Tousen had haughtily called it. Fucking righteous prick.

“Ichigo?” A voice called out from the floor. Grimmjow looked down to see…actually he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at. A complete bastardization of what a big cat was? Should Grimmjow be offended by proxy? The cursed thing made eye contact with him, mouth dropped in comical horror. It visibly started sweating despite being made of cloth. Before Grimmjow could decide whether this abomination was prey worth hunting, it darted between his legs. It began wailing more intensely for Kurosaki and something about a home intruder. Whatever.

Grimmjow concluded that if Kurosaki willingly let that thing hang around his personal territory then it was probably fine to investigate. If not, he might go back on his promise to not murder the shinigami in his sleep based on sheer insult alone. He strolled right into the room without bothering to turn the lights on.

The rest of the house had been average, sure, but not without some signs of life. Kurosaki kept things militantly neat. Nothing of interest to Grimmjow was out in the open.The bed was practically straitjacketed by its own sheets, as if to exercise some form of control over the object. But, it didn’t mask the faint scent of fear sweat from Grimmjow’s tuned senses when he leaned over the pillow to get a better whiff. So, his insomnia issue hadn’t been a production of Grimmjow’s two year coma from hell.

He dropped his duffel bag on the floor, straightening himself. Grimmjow had come to a few decisions while eating earlier, an activity during which he’d argue that he always came up with his best ideas. One, he couldn’t kill Kurosaki yet because of the debt he _unwillingly_ owed the shinigami. Two, ass kickings were still on the table but if the fucker was too tired then he might as well use the opportunity to knock him out. Therefore, Grimmjow might be able to physically beat the insomnia out of Kurosaki, paying back his debt, and _then_ he could kill him.

There was the sound of footsteps before Kurosaki appeared in the doorway, frowning briefly before flicking the light switch. He eyed Grimmjow’s bag on the floor. There was a fluffy looking cloth in one hand.

“What’s that?” Grimmjow asked him, before he could ask a dumb question, probably.

There was a confused tilt of the head. Kurosaki held up the cloth, “A towel?” There was a questioning lilt to his voice that suggested he didn’t expect Grimmjow to _not_ know what that was. “You use them to dry off after getting wet? Usually after bathing.”

“We all just use sonido to dry ourselves off,” Grimmjow generously explained his ignorance, without giving into the slight twitch in his right hand that demanded he punch Kurosaki in the gut right now for looking at him like he was an idiot. Kurosaki’s eyebrows disappeared behind his hair. “What?”

“...I guess I just didn’t picture arrancar living all that differently?” Kurosaki mused, before turning on his heel, “C’mon, I’ll show you where the bathroom is.” Like he’d said something completely normal by suggesting arrancar ‘weren’t all that different’. Grimmjow felt a flash of rage that shifted to begrudged irritation.

“What a dipshit,” Grimmjow muttered mostly to himself as he followed.

This declaration solidified for him when Kurosaki showed him a bathroom that was _nothing_ like what Las Noches had. Just handed him the towel and looked at him somewhat expectantly as Grimmjow tried to process.This room was small, cramped, and there was absolutely no obvious pool of water. There was a weird stall built into the wall with a strange apparatus about head level. The one door was the only feasible exit since the window was tiny with strange, foggy glass. To him, this was just a box with a sink shoved in the corner.

He was also trying to ignore the toilet's existence before this damn gigai forced him to get familiar with it.

Back in Las Noches, in a fit of whatever sick shit was going on in his head, Aizen had decided to make public bathes the only available option for a bunch of creatures that had been happily eating each other two steps down the evolutionary ladder. Getting clean was both a point of constant stress and a matter of necessity to express as little fear in each other’s proximity as possible. Grimmjow had despised it and also made it a point to meticulously style his hair in the area every time he washed.

Aizen, obviously, had had a private bath.

Looking at Kurosaki’s clueless face, Grimmjow decided that explaining these facts was the easiest way to get the shinigami to show him where to clean himself without directly asking.

Kurosaki sighed after hearing Grimmjow’s brief explanation, “Of course, Aizen did that. Just when I think I’ve heard the full list of moves that guy pulled, something new and shitty makes itself known.”

“Maybe you should give me the full fuckin’ list while I’m in this gigai and can’t eviscerate shit,” Grimmjow said dryly as he started pulling the bobby pins and hair tie free from his head. Blue bangs fell in his face and the rest of his hair to around his collarbones. Kurosaki was staring at him again, like he’d said or did something surprising. “Show me how dumb human bathrooms work.” That seemed to shake him out of it.

“Right,” Kurosaki murmured, a bit dazed for whatever reason. Then, he walked over to gesture at the weird stall, “This is a shower. It turns on and adjusts temperature by doing this.” Kurosaki reached over and turned a knob on the wall. Without warning, a loud hiss of water came blasting out of the setup on the wall. Grimmjow responded with a hissing growl of his own while reaching towards his belt for a sword that wasn’t there. He froze to the spot with his teeth bared, heart rate going up a bit, and his eyes fixed on the stream of water for a threat.

Looking somewhat alarmed, Kurosaki stuck his hand under the stream of water, “You stand in it and then get clean.” He held eye contact with Grimmjow, waving his hand back and forth. Making it extremely clear by the second how harmless it was.

Grimmjow felt a rush of heat rise to his face even as he told himself he refused to be embarrassed. Even the tips of his ears felt warm, causing him to self-consciously hike his shoulders up and clench his jaw like a steel trap. He chanced a quick glance out of the corner of his eye at the mirror by the sink. Grimmjow silently fumed over his blue hair being such a nice little fucking contrast to his mortification. He wanted his mask fragment back so he could turn his face and use it as a shield.

“Sorry, I should have warned you it was loud,” Kurosaki apologized, sounding more guilty than entertained.

Wordlessly, Grimmjow stiffly straightened out of a combat ready pose. He threw the towel into the general direction of the sink before marching directly into Kurosaki’s space in front of the shower door. The shinigami tensed up, eyes flicking up and down from his face to his shoulders, clearly watching for the twitch of muscles that would indicate Grimmjow taking a swing at him.

Grimmjow leaned forward, one eye twitching. It was child’s play, even in his weakened state, to feel the massive difference in their reiatsu from this close. Grimmjow felt like a spark in the face of a raging forest fire. Despite that, Kurosaki leaned back like _he_ was the one who should be concerned about being eaten. It was an odd reaction that made Grimmjow stop to take in Kurosaki’s slightly wide eyes with a sense of mystification.

Who was the predator and who was the prey here, really? Ever since their last battle, as much as Grimmjow loathed to admit it, he really couldn’t tell despite having thought of himself as the apex since the moment he became capable of thought. Honestly, if they could switch personalities then Kurosaki would be giving all three worlds at once a fucking time and a half rather than showing Grimmjow how a shower worked with a dumb look on his face, arm still under the stream of water.

Grimmjow put his hand on the offending face and shoved it away from the shower. “Hey!” Kurosaki squawked out, sounding caught right in the middle of astonishment and offense. His cry went unacknowledged as Grimmjow lifted one leg into the stall. This action was followed by a somewhat shrill, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Now what?” Grimmjow bit out in a clipped tone. He glared over his shoulder with one eye, not feeling it was worth the bother to fully turn around.

Kurosaki opened and closed his mouth a few times. Arms gestured at Grimmjow’s body for a few seconds before he said in a tight tone, “You just. You can’t just shower with your clothes on.”

This was news to Grimmjow. Everyone in Las Noches bathed with their clothes on because, one, there was no way in hell anyone trusted anyone to be naked near each other in an enclosed space and, two, clean clothes. It was also the main reason why Grimmjow hated underwear and socks. Damn things didn’t dry fast enough under his other clothes no matter how fast his sonido was.

Grimmjow regarded his pant leg that was steadily being soaked through with water before looking back at Kurosaki. “Really?” He asked, in a tone that conveyed pleasantly surprised skepticism.

“We have other ways to clean clothes here,” Kurosaki said in strained voice, being smart enough to guess about half the reason.

Grimmjow blinked. The last time he had bathed naked had been…before he became an arrancar. And that was literally only because he didn’t need to wear clothes beforehand. Some kind of thrill at the prospect began to rise up in his chest.

His hands immediately found the hem of his shirt and violently yanked up.

Just as Grimmjow pulled his head out of it, there was skittering and a noise that sounded like a choking chicken followed by the door slamming shut. A confused scan of the room revealed that Kurosaki had bolted.

“I’ll, uh, get you some dry clothes,” his muffled voice announced, footsteps stomping firmly down the hall seconds later.

Grimmjow tried to mentally calculate what could have justified that reaction before giving up with a shrug tostripnaked. Getting clean was more crucial than whatever weird human or Kurosaki boundary he might have crossed. Not that he really cared, ultimately.

The hot water blasting his bare back easily drained his pondering thoughts down the drain along with a tenseness that he hadn’t noticed locking up his spine. It felt divine in comparison to the cold, tiled mosaic pools of Las Noches. Grimmjow tipped his head back into the spray with a contented sigh. He’d appreciate his lack of hierro in this fake body for just this once.

There was also the enjoyable lack of water moving through his midsection, although he soon noticed that the skin where his hollow hole was supposed to be felt weirdly disconnected. He felt around the area on his back to confirm. It was as if the nerves simply hadn’t had anything to connect to. Pressing his other hand on his stomach, he supposed that wasn’t that big of a stretch. It wasn’t like he knew any other way to be anyway. And it wasn’t interfering with body function despite the numb spot in the middle of his spine.

Something about it still bothered him, but hollow holes caused that feeling if thought about for prolonged periods of timeanyway. Still, something more than usual felt as if it were at work. Probably being in the living world fucking with him.

Best to stop acknowledging it.

Letting his hands drop away, Grimmjow’s gaze dropped a bit further.

“Huh. So the hair does go all the way south,” Grimmjow commented to himself as he observed Kisuke’s handiwork in full.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all weren’t expecting lore on the underwear hatred were you? 
> 
> Also, of course I saw a bike called the Intruder and immediately went ‘oh yes, perfect for Ichigo’. Highly recommend googling Suzuki Intruder and ogling bikes for ten minutes. 
> 
> Also, uhhhhhh, I’m just gonna not deadline myself because I have adhd and that’s just me inflicting cruel and unusual punishment on myself. Also, I’m two years post college, what am I trying to prove lol? But, in my defense, I’ve started writing a one shot that might be out eventually and have a few more planned so, ultimately, more content.
> 
> Comments would be appreciated, this one did give me trouble and I’d like to know how I’m doing so far.

**Author's Note:**

> Phew! I really wrote this in a frenzy in about four days. Might take a bit of a break.  
> Sometimes you don’t get to the what your story centers on until the end of near 6000 words and go ‘Huh. This is gonna turn out longer than I planned’. What can I say? I’m a stage setter. Well, that’s my problem, not yours.
> 
> Comments are appreciated because they are my fuel!


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